Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ibot66]

When I was in middle school, I generally thought it was pretty uneducational. But, at least in history, it apears as if I was granted like... An actually good amount of information, much of it painting imperialism as a bad thing. This may in part be because it focused less on the whole "war" aspect of both American and ancient history and more economic, political, and social events.

[Solifuge]

On the note of scarcity, governmental and financial reform, and taking a step back to address the problems with our system, I wanted to share my discovery of Foster Gamble's "Thrive Movement". I recently caught the film they put together for the movement, and alternated between having to choke back my frustration and disagreements with some of what they were saying, while finding many other parts inspirational and interesting. It addresses a lot of the concerns of the Occupy movement, and proposes a number of actions that could make a difference.

I still don't know how I feel about it, all in all: it's full of Libertarian ideology, and slips into pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, and spirituality frequently... but it also contains a number of inspirational, interesting, and rational interviews, and takes a pretty comprehensive look at many of the problems our world is facing... from corporate influence running counter to the growth of green energy, agricultural shifts that are leading to serious environmental and scarcity concerns, and the toxic banking practices that have brought us to much of our troubles.

The full video can be found on Youtube. Though fun, you could probably skip the first 40 minutes... and if you do watch it, keep a critical mind, and don't be afraid to wade through disagreeable stuff to get to the proverbial meat and potatoes... there are a lot of ideas in there that make it a worthwhile watch.

[SalmonGod]

It looks like Britain is preparing to invade the Ecuadorian embassy to retrieve Julian Assange and extradite him to Sweden.

For those who haven't been following, Assange has been held in custody in Britain for quite a while now, fighting extradition to Sweden.  It's widely believed that if Sweden gets him, they will hand him over to the U.S..  British courts decided to extradite him to Sweden after a long legal battle.  Assange responded by violating the terms of his bail and hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.  Ecuador had tentatively offered him political asylum.  He's been hiding in the embassy since June 19th, waiting on final word on asylum.

Tonight the embassy has been surrounded by police vans, and a few officers have been seen entering a side entrance.  Protesters have shown up in response.  Assange's fate may be sealed tonight.

This stream is supposedly live outside the embassy

A Huffington Post news article on the situation

Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said Britain had earlier in the day issued "a written threat that it could assault our embassy" if Assange is not handed over.

British officials have vowed not grant Assange safe passage out of their country if Ecuador grants asylum. They say they will arrest him the moment he steps foot outside the embassy.

[sneakey pete]

Still not at all convinced by the "Sweden will hand him over to the USA" argument, considering the UK would be more likely to than Sweden.

[SalmonGod]

Still not at all convinced by the "Sweden will hand him over to the USA" argument, considering the UK would be more likely to than Sweden.

It's pretty hard not to believe there's something more at stake than the weak charges in Sweden, just because of the ridiculous escalation of the issue.  Every state action in regards to the accusations in Sweden has been record-breakingly over the top.

[Zangi]

They want to make an example of him of course... you are only a good whistle-blower if you never publish/distribute anything 'damaging' to the people who can send you to jail.  Do it to China or Russia and they'd be applauding him as a freaking hero and make excuses to their differing response.

[sneakey pete]

Still not at all convinced by the "Sweden will hand him over to the USA" argument, considering the UK would be more likely to than Sweden.

It's pretty hard not to believe there's something more at stake than the weak charges in Sweden, just because of the ridiculous escalation of the issue.  Every state action in regards to the accusations in Sweden has been record-breakingly over the top.

Still not seeing it being more than a case of "trying someone due to their profile". Again, I don't see how extradition to Sweden would result in extradition to the USA.

edit: guess we'll find out in the next 24 hours or so.

[darkrider2]

They want to make an example of him of course... you are only a good whistle-blower if you never publish/distribute anything 'damaging' to the people who can send you to jail.  Do it to China or Russia and they'd be applauding him as a freaking hero and make excuses to their differing response.

[Scelly9]

PTW

[scriver]

There is little reason to assume Sweden would extradite him beyond Assange's own words. Of course, his cult of personality is completely incapable of thinking he could be lying or commit any kind of crime, despite him showing every sign of being a complete arsehole.

It's pretty hard not to believe there's something more at stake than the weak charges in Sweden, just because of the ridiculous escalation of the issue.  Every state action in regards to the accusations in Sweden has been record-breakingly over the top.

Most of this "escalation" has been from Assange's side.

But yeah. If he does get extracted I'll buy a Fine Top Hat and eat it. Still not likely, however. The Swedish media and general population raised hell over two completely unknown immigrants that got shipped to Egypt on American accusations of terrorism, and the government is already going through popularity drains and is currently facing even harder times due to to the uncovering of the wasteful spending of their underlings (that I ranted about in Progressive Rage thread).

[Solifuge]

Most of this "escalation" has been from Assange's side.

Perhaps you missed that, when no legal reason could be found to accuse Wikileaks of any legitimate crime, a financial blockade was instead put into place by international banks to starve the organization of funding. Perhaps you haven't noticed that, once the organization found ways around the financial blockade, Assange was then suddenly accused of assault and detained. Perhaps you missed that then, once he managed to flee and was offered asylum by Ecuador, the government threatened to overstep Ecuador's sovereignty and violate diplomatic immunity in order to capture him, deeming a mere accusation of a civil crime as an extreme enough case for them to violate international law. Does none of this qualify as escalation on Britain's part? Does none of this seem excessive or unnecessary to you?

I understand why you might dislike Julian Assange on a personal level, but try to maintain an emotional distance when assessing situations such as this.

Anyway, the last remaining streams from the embassy abruptly ceased, and no word has gotten through in about an hour. Updates have apparently moved to the Wikileaks Twitter.

EDIT: Apparently they're having unspecified technical difficulties, and hope to be back by 10:30 GMT.

Also...

Still not at all convinced by the "Sweden will hand him over to the USA" argument, considering the UK would be more likely to than Sweden.

It's pretty hard not to believe there's something more at stake than the weak charges in Sweden, just because of the ridiculous escalation of the issue.  Every state action in regards to the accusations in Sweden has been record-breakingly over the top.

Stratfor e-mails have revealed that a sealed indictment has been issued by a secret grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, for Julian Assange. The email is dated 26 January 2011. This means that there has likely been a sealed extradition order for over a year, which will be activated (unsealed) against Assange in Sweden, Australia and the UK when the US Government gives the order.

...

"One of the major issues surrounding the Assange case is whether "we [the United States] can drag his ass over here."
- David Adler, federal criminal defense attorney and former CIA officer

[Leafsnail]

The thing is that the US already has one of the most favourable extradition agreements imaginable with the UK.  They successfully won extraditions for O'Dwyer (who didn't commit a crime under UK law and never left the country) and McKinnen (who did no harm to anyone, is mentally ill and never left the UK), afterall (incidentally both of those cases are far more scandalous than Assange who stands accused of rape, a thing which is actually a crime).  They're clearly capable of making bullshit extraditions from the UK, so why wait until he's in Sweden?

[Osmosis Jones]

The thing is that the US already has one of the most favourable extradition agreements imaginable with the UK.  They successfully won extraditions for O'Dwyer (who didn't commit a crime under UK law and never left the country) and McKinnen (who did no harm to anyone, is mentally ill and never left the UK), afterall (incidentally both of those cases are far more scandalous than Assange who stands accused of rape, a thing which is actually a crime).  They're clearly capable of making bullshit extraditions from the UK, so why wait until he's in Sweden?

This is what I've seen on that;

Wouldn’t the UK be more likely to extradite Assange than Sweden?

* Read the Freedom of Information (FOI) response from the Home Office (February 2012) regarding US Attorney General Eric Holder’s direct participation in UK Extradition Act ’review’

"If the Justice Department were actually to issue charges against Mr. Assange while he was still in Britain there could be potentially a decision for the UK government whether to extradite him to Sweden or to the United States, and that could get to be a complicated clash between the two different requests which would put the UK government in a difficult position." - John B. Bellinger III on Fox News

Some critical voices claim that the UK-US extradition treaty is more permissive than the Sweden-US extradition treaty. Extradition to the US, they claim, would be simpler from the UK than from Sweden.

This argument fails on several points:

- The UK’s extradition treaty does not have the temporary surrender (’conditional release’) clause. The UK’s judicial review process, while far from perfect, has a number of practical review mechanisms. The nearest equivalent case, of Gary McKinnon - a UK citizen who has been charged for hacking US military systems - has been opposed in the courts for 8 years.

- Public opinion and the media (to a greater extent) are more sympathetic to Julian Assange in the UK than in Sweden. Public pressure could draw out the process of extradition to the United States in the UK. In Sweden the media climate is hostile (see Media climate in Sweden) due to the sex allegations. Public outcry would be significantly weaker and therefore less likely to stand in the way of a strategically convenient extradition.

- In the UK, Julian Assange is better able to defend himself, muster support and understand the legal procedures against him. In Sweden on the other hand, the language barrier prevents him from effectively challenging the actions against.

- The UK is politically better positioned to withstand pressure from the United States than Sweden. Sweden is a small country of nine million people close to Russia. It has grown increasingly dependent on the United States. In recent years Sweden has complied with directives from the United States in a manner that has not been scrutinised by Parliament, as has been revealed by the disclosed diplomatic cables (see Political Interference).

From here.

[Leafsnail]

That makes a lot of sense, actually.  I still feel like McKinnen and O'Dwyer are much worse cases but I guess we can keep fighting those.

[SalmonGod]

The site Solifuge (and now ninja Osmosis Jones!) quoted earlier actually has a ton of information about the extradition situation.  It's a long read, but it might clear up some things for anyone who is critical of the U.S. extradition theories.